House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, thought of Animal Farm when he first read the Bill. I thought of one of those dread brainstorming sessions; I could hear some bright spark saying, “I know, let’s go after a bunch of pale, stale and male aristocratic toffs in the Lords. That’ll be popular with the masses”. It strikes me that this Bill may have gone through a similar policy wonk consultation as “Let’s go after those well-off pensioners taking advantage of our generous winter fuel allowance” or “Let’s go after those greedy, tax-dodging, land-owning farmers or those wealthy parents who can afford to send their special needs kids to posh private schools”. It feels a bit chippy and based on caricatures. At lunchtime, seeing that magnificent array of tractors driving past should be a salutary lesson for Ministers of what happens when lazily stereotyped villains bump into material reality—in this instance, working farmers cheered on by the public as they demonstrated against government policy.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office, Nick Thomas-Symonds, justified the Bill by saying that, allegedly, if the second Chamber reflects modern Britain then it can restore public trust in democratic institutions. Do the Government really believe that all it will take to tackle profound political alienation, and a yawning disconnect between millions of voters and mainstream institutions, is to erase 88 hereditary Peers? That seems just a tad complacent.

I understand the rationale that, in the 21st century, it is outdated and indefensible for those born into certain families to decide on the laws of the land. That is fair enough, but surely it is equally indefensible that any of us, with no mandate, should be sitting here at all. Okay, we are not here because of parentage, but, as other Peers have acknowledged, we are here due to another arcane form of top-down patronage. We should be careful to avoid any self-regarding discussion that imagines that the majority of us are here based on merit or our virtues. It is equally egregious to appoint those infamous cronies, donors, former MPs—many appointed after they were rejected by the electorate—and all the odds and sods who have been put here based on some prime-ministerial whim; yes, that includes me. I apologise to the great and the good, by the way, and to the Bishops, because I know that they are all blameless, but nonetheless, all of us, however virtuous, are unelected and represent an affront to democracy.

I say this not to be churlish. Many here are brilliant, hard-working scrutineers. There is an abundance of expert knowledge, and plenty of rhetorical and analytical accomplishment, which is often lacking in the other place. Regardless of all that, it is hard to argue that we are the epitome of democracy.

I am therefore still bemused that the Government have narrowed the scope of reform to hereditary Peers only. That seems like such a waste of parliamentary time and energy. For goodness’ sake, if you are going to do constitutional reform, do it with conviction and gusto. We should not be gaslit into accepting that this bitty, piecemeal approach is anywhere near the constitutional shake-up that was promised. I appreciate that to be radical would require courage, with a grown-up debate in both Chambers and a national conversation about how Parliament should enact the will of the people via lawmaking, and that it would encounter problems—yes, an elected upper Chamber would be a challenge to the primacy of the Commons, as was pointed out in the excellent maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham—but maybe looking at the Lords is the wrong focus.

When this Chamber is lauded for amending poorly drafted laws, spotting unintended consequences, and having the time to scrutinise legislation properly after laws are rushed through the other place, surely our focus should be on a proper democratic solution that bolsters the time available and the scrutinising powers of the Commons. The focus should be on the Commons, to improve the quality of the laws drafted; in other words, to abolish this second Chamber and adopt a truly unicameral model, to improve and upskill the Commons, and to concentrate on improving the most important relationship, which is not between the two Houses but between the elected and the electorate.

Finally, I believe that we have, at present, a problem of elitism in the UK. But in 2024 the culprits are not the gentry, lording it over the public; they are the new political and cultural overlords, who look down on ordinary people and think they know best about everything, from the public’s consumer habits to the virtues of mass migration, in defiance of popular disquiet. Forget the “to the manor born” types, correcting the P’s and Q’s of the hoi polloi; beware instead the patronising diversity and inclusion commissars who police everyday words and pronouns on pain of cancellation, and who, without irony, lecture others to, “Check your privilege”. Entitlement and elitism are alive and kicking. The hereditary principle is the least of democracy’s problems—and, by the way, victory to the farmers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, made her valedictory speech. If anyone is proof that 80 is an arbitrary, mad and ageist line at which to cut off somebody in their prime—I hope she has a wonderful retirement in Newcastle, which I love—she is a perfect example.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend, whom I respect greatly and have worked with over many years, underestimates the calibre of many Members of Parliament. I take his point that many of the people who come forward in relation to an appointed House might not put their names forward for an elected second Chamber. But at the end of the day, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is very hard to justify a second Chamber of Parliament that does not have electoral legitimacy. My plea is that we make sure that that legitimacy is produced in a way that does not bring us to conflict.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am very torn on this. I favour a unicameral approach and a lot of the arguments against the elected second Chamber have been made very well, even though I want a more democratic way of making decisions.

There is a crisis of democracy at present that expands far beyond this debate. What really struck me in the debate on assisted dying in the other place was the number of times that MPs effectively said, “Let’s leave it up to the House of Lords to sort out”. That is a disaster, because it is anti-democratic. It worries me, as we increasingly watch a certain implosion happening at the other end, that the House of Lords is given far too much credit for being able to sort that out. The unelected House being the ones who are trusted is the profound crisis of democratic accountability in this country. That is what we should be debating. I feel very self-conscious about being in an unelected House of Lords debating the survival of an unelected House of Lords—which people stay and which people go. It is so self-regarding.

As for the notion of a House full of experts—philosopher kings and all that—I cannot imagine anything more off-putting to the British public than us patting ourselves on the back and saying that we know more than anyone else. I appreciate that is fashionable, but it should not be something we embrace. That is not to undermine the expertise that is here, but please do not try to make it a virtue in terms of democratic decision-making.

However, to go back to the spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, one problem with the discussion on hereditary Peers is that it is too limited. It suggests that it is revolutionary and reforming; in fact, it is just going for low-hanging fruit when we should be having a proper discussion about a democratic shake-up at both ends of this Westminster Palace. I feel that we are wasting an awful lot of time while Rome burns.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting debate, even if it started slightly predictably. If an all-appointed House is eventually created by this Bill, many—whatever some of us think—will contemplate the logical next step in reforming the House of Lords, which is to consider a democratic mandate. We must not get away from that. I heard talk earlier of “bringing the House into disrepute” by our debating the issues we were, but I am not sure that it helps to be seen laughing at the idea of election, which we did earlier, although it might have been that we were laughing at the Liberal Democrat obsession with proportional representation—one never knows.

As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, explained, it has been a long-held aspiration of the Liberal Democrats and, before them, the good old Liberal Party, which really was liberal, to replace your Lordships’ House with an elected Chamber. It is there in the preamble to the 1911 Act, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde always reminds us. There have been various attempts, often supported in this Chamber, to achieve a democratic second Chamber: in the 1960s, in the 1970s and most recently by the coalition in 2011. My colleagues are not unhappy with me at the moment, but I will upset them by saying that it was a proposal which I and many others in this House assented to. As we know, it could not be prosecuted because it was frustrated procedurally in the other place by a number of Conservative MPs and the Labour Party.

There is logic and consistency in the noble Lord’s position. I hugely respect the noble Lord, Lord Winston; he really is an expert, whatever others say. However, speaking humbly as someone who has fought seven elections in my ward and won them all, and twice fought elections to be leader of my council and won both—sorry—I hope your Lordships do not consider me to be a complete nincompoop. I do not claim to be an expert, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that some people who are elected can be good.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, it may be worth thinking about where this power for the Prime Minister to appoint Lords came from—I am thinking of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Butler. It derives from the fact that King John had his power to raise taxes taken away from him by the Magna Carta. He was left with the right to appoint Peers—to create Lords—to wage war and to write and sign treaties. Since then, the waging war and treaties have recently come under greater scrutiny. There are problems with that, and Parliament is certainly facing them at the moment in the treaties being written.

The one thing that no one seems to be questioning is that the Prime Minister has the right to advise the King, and constitutionally the King does not refuse the Prime Minister—because that is unconstitutional. Therefore, the Prime Minister has the ancient monarchical power to create Peers. If we think that this power is still right 800 or so years later, that is fine, but we should maybe be thinking, as our predecessors did all those centuries ago, about circumscribing this right and having more control over the unfettered power of the Prime Minister, who is also the head of the Civil Service—and the judiciary, which is now a Civil Service department, the Ministry of Justice—and the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. I do not really like him having control over everything.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have long thought that the problem with the Bill is that we all become rather high-handed in talking about the hereditary Peers, as though they are the epitome of anti-democracy in this House. To be honest, we have all been appointed; none of us was elected. Therefore, it seems to me that this is a way of feeling good about ourselves by looking down on the hereditaries, when in fact none of us has a legitimate right to be here.

That to one side, I had a lot of regard for the spirit of the previous amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, looking for a democratic way of electing a second Chamber. The spirit of that, at least, was that the demos—the people—should decide, and I regarded that well. Yet the lead amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, seems to epitomise the opposite of that last amendment, because it is all about anti-democracy. It would give the ultimate power to an unelected committee answerable to no one. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, explained that very well, and there have been follow-on speeches expanding on it.

In moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked us to imagine that the Prime Minister—or indeed president, as he said—may not be a good chap or chapess. I wondered who would decide who and what is good. Would it be HOLAC, or the noble Lord, Lord Wallace? It is possible that he and I would not agree. The whole tone was that constitutional guard-rails would be set up by those who know better, who are more ethical or more virtuous, just in case the voters voted in the wrong way and voted in a wrong ’un. We all know that this is a nod to having a go at the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and that it is about President Trump, not President Biden. It has a partisan feel to it.

When it comes to legislation, I am very worried about how many Henry VIII powers are being used at present and about the number of statutory instruments contained in Bills. I argued that when they were put forward by the Conservative Government and agreed with many people in the Labour Party in opposition about that anti-democratic trend. I am sad to see that with Labour in government, there are even more Henry VIII powers and statutory instruments. In other words, we should be worried by an anti-democratic trend that we are witnessing. If we have to have a second Chamber, the Lords, and if we are going to appoint people, at least let us retain the notion that the Prime Minister—who has a democratic mandate—should be the person who decides, rather than an unelected committee.

As a note on the virtues of unelected expert committees, I am absolutely fine with them being advisory but not in charge. This morning, in relation to a discussion on the infamous door that has cost a fortune and does not work, and on that ugly fence that is an anti-social insult and looks like a barrier between this House and the public, we heard that it was all agreed by a very worthy committee. None of us even knew it was happening, because it was unanswerable. At the end of that discussion, I still could not work out who had made the decision. It was even more opaque than a Prime Minister deciding on who gets in this House. In other words, having a committee does not make it okay.

Finally, I will speak in favour of being partisan and taking sides. I am all for the virtues of the Cross Benches, but something seems to be wrong about the notion that the Cross Benches are full of the great and the good, who are experts, and that somehow they are superior to anyone who has an opinion, a passion or a principle, because they know more than the rest of us. I appreciate that I never joined the Cross Benches—somehow I did not get invited.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am just pointing it out.

They are apparently independent, but not that independent. There is a group of us who are sort of maverick; we are called non-affiliated—God knows what it means. It is very important that we defend the right to be political, to be partisan and to say, “I’m not an expert, but I absolutely believe in this”. If we are to exist in here at all, can we at least have some purpose beyond saying how many PhDs we have or how many charities we run?

The great and the good are great and good, but the writing of laws in this country—being legislators and being political—is not just about that. I am as frustrated as anyone about the way that party politics—the whipping process and so on—can damage political independence and courage on all sides of this House. We have witnessed it tonight and we have witnessed it in the other place over the last few days. That annoys me, because I want people to believe in something. On the other hand, the danger of saying that we are a House of experts, and that we will now have an expert HOLAC group that will decide on how many more experts it will bring in, is that we are kicking politics out of what should be an absolutely political place.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will not delay the House long. Many years ago, under a Conservative Government, I advocated that Nigel Farage should become a Member of your Lordships’ House. If we had recognised the role that he played in taking Britain out of the EU, people would have said that he does represent the majority in this country.

At the time, he was polling quite significantly—which is more than one could say for most Cross-Benchers in this House—and he was a very significant political player, whether you agreed with him or not. Neither of the political parties was going to nominate him, so it would have taken the Cross-Benchers to make him an offer to join them. At that time he might well have done so, because he thought he had finished his political career by taking us out of the EU, and he would have had a very valuable role to play in your Lordships’ House.

Think how different things would be today. It does not follow that he could not have led Reform from your Lordships’ House, but I suspect that it would have been rather more difficult. We would have been in a very different position today if he were a Member of your Lordships’ House. When we think about how representative our House is of British public opinion, we have to bear in mind that there are serious players out there who are not represented here, and I believe that they should be.